Why Amazon keeps money it owes you

Amazon pays for much of what it loses on its own, but only what its own records count, and only inside a window. This page gives Amazon’s rules for each step, each with the Amazon page that states it.

1 · Amazon pays only what it counts
Amazon pays on its own only for the units its own records count as lost or damaged.
Nov 1, 2024Amazon started paying for a unit lost in its warehouses on its own, as soon as the unit is reported lost.¹
Mar 31, 2025Amazon started paying for a unit lost before a customer order at your cost to buy or make it.^2,3
No cost givenAmazon pays its own estimate of your cost instead.³
Amazon’s Inventory Ledger report lists every unit it counts as lost, found or damaged.⁴ A unit Amazon never counts as lost gets no payment on its own.
A unit Amazon cannot place sits in “Researching” for 60 days at most.⁵ Until then, it is neither found nor lost.

2 · Every claim has a window

A discrepancy Amazon did not pay can be claimed only inside Amazon’s window, and most windows are 60 days.

Discrepancy	You can claim	Amazon’s page
Lost or damaged in a warehouse	Up to 60 days after Amazon reports it lost or damaged	¹
Refund with no return	60 to 120 days after the refund; never before day 60	¹
Shipment received short	After the shipment closes, and up to 9 months after delivery	^6,7
Removal order lost in transit	15 to 75 days after the removal shipment is created	¹
Other removal claims	Within 60 days after the shipment is delivered back to you	¹

Amazon waits 60 days on a return so the customer has time to send it back.¹ A shipment closes when every unit is received, or 45 days after it was created, 75 for an international one.^7,8

Amazon pays no removal claim on its own: “all removal claims will still need to be filed manually”.¹

When we file each claim →

3
3 · A payment can be taken back
Amazon takes a payment back when it finds the unit, or finds a unit it counts in its place.
Amazon takes a payment back in these cases, all listed on one page:⁹
- Amazon finds the lost unit in a warehouse, and puts it back in your stock.
- The unit turns up in another of your shipments.
- More units than you sent arrived, on the same shipment or on another, and Amazon counts them against the shortage.
- A different product arrived in place of the missing one.
- Amazon counted wrong at receiving.
In the Reimbursements report, a take-back is a row with the reason “Reversed reimbursement” and the ID of the payment it cancels.⁹ Amazon’s page on take-backs gives no way to dispute one.
Units Amazon finds but cannot match to a seller sit under SKUs that start with “Amazon.Found”.⁹
4
4 · Proof, and no careless filing
A claim needs proof you owned the units, and Amazon penalizes claims filed too early or in bulk.
- For a short shipment, Amazon takes your supplier’s invoice with the purchase date, product names and quantities. You may hide the prices.⁷
- If you make the product, Amazon takes a packing slip signed or stamped by the manufacturer, with the shipment or order ID.⁷
- Amazon refuses pro forma invoices, and files you can edit, such as Word or Excel.⁷
- Amazon may decline a claim if “Any documentation is forged, tampered with, or illegible”.³
Amazon warns it may act on “insufficiently researched or premature requests, or submitting a large number of requests in a short time”.³ So a claim filed too early, or with a batch of others, can cost more than it recovers.
How we file each case →
5 · How much is at stake
Services that recover this money say it is often 1–3% of a seller’s revenue.
Sellerboard and Jarvio each put this money at 1–3% of a seller’s yearly revenue.^10,11 Neither says how it measured the figure, so read it as their estimate.
Your own number comes from your own records, one discrepancy at a time.

6 · What we do about it

Our playbook answers each rule on this page, and follows every case until Amazon closes it.

Amazon	What we do
Pays only what it counts	We read its Inventory Ledger row by row, and give Amazon time to pay on its own before we file.
Sets a window on every claim	We file after Amazon’s own wait ends and before the window closes.
Takes payments back	We check every take-back for a unit put back in your stock, and file again when none came back.
Asks for proof, and penalizes careless filing	We attach your invoice or a signed packing slip, and file one case per shipment, one after another.
Refuses, or says nothing	We answer in the same case with Amazon’s own records, until Amazon closes it.

Read the playbook →

7 · Who runs it
We run this for you in these jobs.
Amazon Reimbursements · deliverableReimbursement ClaimsEvery case where Amazon owes you money filed as a claim with the proof Amazon asks for, followed until Amazon closes it, and reported with what was recovered.JobInventory ManagementYour whole inventory operation, run for you — stock numbers reconciled and kept true, demand forecasting, stockout prevention with a revenue receipt, purchase orders owned end to end, and inbound tracking.